Dateline Wausau: 1947: Honest men return wallet intact

A reader could infer that a newspaper reporter thought a small reward might have been in order when an honest bus driver and a bus depot clerk returned a man's missing wallet, complete with the $1,150 it contained.

"What price honesty and a clear conscience?" asked the writer of a story in the Tuesday, Jan. 21, 1947, edition of the Wausau Daily Record-Herald.

Earl Walton, a driver for Motor Bus Lines, found a man's wallet in the aisle after passengers left the bus he drove from Eau Claire to Wausau, arriving about midnight that Sunday. The story said he called out, "Did anyone lose a wallet?" but received no answer.

So Walton took the wallet to Glenn Erickson, the on-duty clerk at the Union bus depot that night. The two were looking through the wallet's contents to identify the owner when someone called from a downtown hotel looking for it.

Before Walton and Erickson finished counting the money the wallet contained, the owner arrived and proved his identity. The owner counted the money and declared it intact.

Erickson joked that it should be split, and the owner said, "It would be worthwhile; there's about $1,150 in it," the newspaper reported. The owner hesitated, then thanked the honest men and left the bus station.

"Well, Walton and Erickson can at least get a kick out of talking about it, can't they?" concluded the story.

Dateline Wausau recaps a story of local interest from this week in history.

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Dateline Wausau: 1947: Honest men return wallet intact

A reader could infer that a newspaper reporter thought a small reward might have been in order when an honest bus driver and a bus depot clerk returned a man's missing wallet, complete with the $1,

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